The present invention relates to a holding fixture or chip carrier for housing a semiconductor circuit chip. More particularly, this invention provides an inexpensive chip carrier having plated or bonded heat sinks and conductive traces capable of direct attachment to a circuit board.
Chip carriers include a molded dielectric base in the form of a tray for receiving the chip. Conductive traces for the chip are typically provided on a circuit board separately mounted on the tray as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,963,315. Alternatively, traces are provided by metal electrical contacts as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,877,064 and 3,846,734. The chip is held in place, for example, by a separate cover or by latches provided on the metal contacts, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,865,458. Mounting the chip carrier to a circuit board is accomplished by plugging the metal contacts into plating lined holes or into miniature metal receptacles attached to the circuit board.
Due to the abating cost of integrated circuit chips and advancements in miniaturization, there is a need for changing the chip carriers because of their bulkiness and relatively high fabrication cost. Circuit boards without component receiving holes are now desired, particularly, when using multilayer circuit boards which eliminate plating lined holes except those used for communication between layers.